PARKER — The pressure of playing in the Solheim Cup is difficult for the participants to describe.

But the top American player, Stacy Lewis, put it in perspective Tuesday during interviews following a practice round at Colorado Golf Club.

Lewis comes off a win in the Women’s British Open — at St. Andrews in Scotland, the home of golf, no less.

But she said Solheim pressure is different. In addition to being more intense, there’s more of it.

“It’s very different (from a major championship),” Lewis said. “I don’t want to scare Lizette (U.S, Solheim rookie Lizette Salas), but what it feels like walking up No. 18 with the lead at a major, that’s what every hole feels like at the Solheim Cup.

“It’s hard because you can feel the momentum shifts in the crowds and the way that roars around the course. You try to just stay in the moment and stay in what you’re doing, but it’s so hard. You kind of get caught up in the theater of it.”

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U.S. Solheim Cup team captain Meg Mallon added four-time Solheim player Laura Diaz to her coaching staff for the 2013 event, which is in August at Colorado Golf Club in Parker.

Diaz is planning to play a full schedule on the LPGA Tour and is still trying to qualify for the team.

“I’m hoping to have a blowout year and be a participant on the team,” she said in a news release. “I have the drive to continue participating in the Solheim Cup as a player.”

The top 10 American players make the team, with two captain’s picks announced Aug. 4 after the final round of the Women’s British Open. Diaz played on the 2002, ’03, ’05 and ’07 U.S. Solheim teams and has a 6-6-1 record.

Diaz will join Dottie Pepper as an assistant captain on the team, which will face the best golfers from Europe.

The announcement came on the eve of the first LPGA North American event of the season — the Founders Cup in Phoenix.

The U.S. team will be at Colorado Golf Club for practice Aug. 5-7, and the Solheim Cup starts Aug. 13.

The European chants of “Ole, Ole” have not even begun to fade as the sun sets over the Irish countryside. The Europeans have just won their first Solheim Cup matches since 2003, and with style. And though the party on the ground will last well into the night, the air is whipping the Colorado Golf Club flag above the closing ceremony, in a tangible reminder that the most exciting event in women’s golf — some might say all of golf – is coming to the Centennial state in less than two years.

I walked into the tent village at Killeen Castle outside of Dublin, Ireland, at 8 a.m. local time, a full two hours before the first final-day singles match. Already, the songs rose from grandstands surrounding the first tee, some 400 yards from away. A steady stream of fans stopped at The 2013 Solheim Cup booth, most with very specific questions. “Where should we stay? What are the best restaurants.”

COUNTY MEATH, Ireland – When the 2013 Solheim Cup tees up in August 2013 at Colorado Golf Club, fans will see the royal and ancient game in a new light. You see, The Solheim Cup is becoming the Grateful Dead of golf. Fans don’t just wait for the show to come to them. They go to the show. And then they keep going.

“We have fans who have been to all 12,” says Becky Newell, director of sales and marketing for The 2013 Solheim Cup, “but we have tons of fans who have been to three or four or more. It’s such a great experience. People just love it.”

Even as the singing and chanting builds in the stands surrounding the first tee here at Killeen Castle, a steady flow of fans is streaming through the expo booth for the 2013 event, asking questions about Colorado and picking up tourism information for Denver. Some are even pulling the trigger and buying tickets on the spot.

Organizers of The 2011 Solheim Cup estimate that 7,000 fans have come to Ireland for this year’s competition. Solheim 2013 tournament director Doug Eibling says the economic impact to Colorado could top $20 million.

COUNTY MEATH, Ireland — Stanford student Michelle Wie got up early Friday morning. Not for the same reasons her classmates may have. No, Wie had another type of deadline — yet another exam on the first tee, this one in Group 1 of the 2011 Solheim Cup atKilleenCastle.

A full decade after the Hawaii native bounded onto the scene as a precocious 12-year-old, she has both fulfilled and left unfulfilled a boundless potential. You watch her play and listen to her talk, and it’s hard to know whether she has been blessed with her incredible talents or cursed by them.

Wie’s career arc is unlike any the game has ever seen. Possessing physical gifts almost from birth, she captivated the golf world. At 13, Wie won the U.S. Women’s Public Links Championship (losing the following year in the final to an equally talented wunderkind named Yani Tseng). She competed against the men on the PGA Tour at age 14. And she contended in women’s majors, right from the start.